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A review by leifw
The Trafalgar Gambit by Christopher G. Nuttall
3.0
This is by far the most interesting of the three books. The authors brought the gambit of killing off perspective characters, which if this is the end of the line isn't that bold a move.
However, it still suffers from flat stereotyping. Suppose you need a strawman nation to play the role of dehumanizing double crosser willing put its needs before those of humanity. With any sense of history lived from the West in the last half of the 20th century, you'd almost have to pick a Communist nation. And if you're going to do that, you might as well pick the Russians, right? And of course our authors took that expedient route.
Again, it can't be that bad because I read all three books in the series, but dang, this series does make me appreciate the self-criticality that more experienced authors deploy to restrain hackneyed shortcuts.
However, it still suffers from flat stereotyping. Suppose you need a strawman nation to play the role of dehumanizing double crosser willing put its needs before those of humanity. With any sense of history lived from the West in the last half of the 20th century, you'd almost have to pick a Communist nation. And if you're going to do that, you might as well pick the Russians, right? And of course our authors took that expedient route.
Again, it can't be that bad because I read all three books in the series, but dang, this series does make me appreciate the self-criticality that more experienced authors deploy to restrain hackneyed shortcuts.